Distortion in the Dark Hour
by Susanoh13
Summary: Shirou is back in Japan after punching the wrong person while studying at the Clock Tower. He can't go back to Fuyuki without getting Rin in trouble for hiding him. Lucky for him Rin has connections with the Kirijo family who can hide him out in Iwatodai. But what is the phenomenon he finds when he arrives, and why are so many high schoolers carrying guns?
1. Arrival I

Disclaimer: I don't own Persona 3 or Fate/Stay Night. I mean I do own the games, but not the rights to the intellectual property.

_Author's note:_

_Hey All! This is going to be the first story I'm posting here, so go easy on me :)_

_This story will follow Shirou of Fate/Stay Night as he is substituted in for the main character of Persona 3. This Shirou is from a few months after the True End of the Unlimited Blade Works route. At the moment, I don't have any plans to have any retroactive changes to the route itself, but I also don't plan on doing an entire rehash of the story for the uninitiated, sorry._

_I took a lot of inspiration for this work from the story "In Flight" by gabriel blessing. If you haven't read it, I endorse it from the bottom of the sea of my soul._

_I'm also not a fan of Author's Notes, so don't expect to see them very often, unless I feel the need to, or someone has pointed out something that may need explaining._

_Now, with that out of the way, let's start the show!_

***Story Start***

**Monday, April 6th**

Time never waits.

It delivers all equally to the same end.

You, who wish to safeguard the future,

however limited it may be…

You will be given one year;

go forth without falter,

with your heart as your guide…

"..dai"

"Iwa...dai"

"Next stop is Iwatodai, the terminal stop for this line"

I blinked slowly as the voice from the train's speakers roused me from my dream. I remembered a flicker of my dreams. Something about… words, but without an accompanying voice, but I couldn't quite remember the words themselves.

Due to some issues, the train had been delayed, and it was almost midnight. I had flown from London to Tokyo less than 12 hours ago, and had been traveling ever since to reach my current location of Iwatodai city. As if the jet lag wasn't enough, I was so tired from traveling I was practically asleep on my feet. At least my luggage had been sent ahead, so I didn't have to cart around all of my belongings.

As I walked through the turnstile out from the train, I saw the second hand of the clock on the opposite wall tick down to midnight.

3..

2…

1…

Midnight

Suddenly, the world around me dramatically changed. The fluorescent lights which had been lighting the station turned off. In fact all electronics turned off. The station was now lit only by moonlight coming in through skylights in the ceiling, which had taken on a greenish cast. The people around me had become entombed in coffins. A blood-like substance had appeared dripping down some of the walls and puddled in some places on the ground. What hit me strongest though, was the smell. Rin had always been amazed, and I think a little jealous, of my ability to sense magic as though it were a scent. It wasn't often I got to smell something good from it though, and this was no exception.

There was scent of… stillness to the air. It made me think of the dry, crisp air on a frozen lake. It was so strong it burnt my nose to inhale, and almost masked the scents beneath it. Second strongest was the scent of blood. Perhaps those puddles weren't just blood-like. Beneath that was an alien scent I couldn't identify. Under that, there was a smell of death. It was the weakest of the smells, but it pervaded the air, adding a haunting feeling to the world that the greenish glow of the moon could only feebly imitate.

For a moment, my sight was replaced with a scene of fire. A city aflame. Pain raced through my body, as the memory came unbidden to my mind. The scene clarified with the pain, and I saw it again. The dark tower in middle of the fire, with the flames around it licking away from it, as if the fire itself would be polluted should it attempt to burn the tower.

I tottered on my feet. Barely managing to catch myself before losing my footing completely. I felt my exhaustion anew as the memory left, seeming to take the last vestiges of my strength with it. Whatever had caused the world to fall into this state, I wasn't in any shape to deal with it at the moment. Before I could go anywhere though, there were a few things I had to check.

I walked over to one of the coffins nearby and, placing my hand on it, used Structural Analysis on it. What I found out caused me to jerk my hand back in surprise. While it had the appearance of a coffin, it was actually a human, but in perfect statis. It was something I had never encountered before. That could perhaps explain the smell of stillness in the air.

Whatever was trapping the person didn't seem to be hurting them at all, which was good, because I wasn't in any state to try getting them out, especially if this spell was affecting more than just the train station.

I didn't want to think about it, but the strength of the statis spells, and the sudden changes to the world made me think of a particular spell that I was familiar with. Perhaps something nearby had access to a Reality Marble. I hadn't been able to fully expand my own Marble since the fight against Gilgamesh, and even then the only reason I had been able to was because I had been using Rin's magic.

"**I am the bone of my sword."**

Reciting the first verse of my aria, I felt my Reality Marble react. Unlimited Blade Works unfolded within my mind. The blueprints and histories of countless swords flashed across my brain as I paused and felt the release of my magic. Inside of another Reality Marble, this level of access to my own Marble would be possible, but there would have been some degree of resistance. There was no such resistance here. Whatever had happened to the world, as much as it resembled a Reality Marble, it wasn't. I let out a sigh of relief, pausing when I realized that, while it wasn't a Reality Marble, it certainly resembled one; it could be dangerous; and I at least knew a little bit about Reality Marbles. Whatever I was in now, I had no idea what it was.

Releasing Unlimited Blade Works, I was once again reminded of how long it had been since I'd had a restful sleep. Since it seemed that no one was in immediate danger, I began thinking that I should probably get along to the dorm I was supposed to stay in and try to recover enough energy to figure out what was going on in this city.

My journey to the dorm proved my suspicions correct. Blood and green moonlight permeated the city. Where people had been walking in the streets, coffins now stood in their place. I had no idea just how far it spread, but it was possible that the entire city was currently in a blood soaked statis.

I noted with some suspicion that the dorm I was to stay in had the lights on when I arrived. Normally I would have guessed that they had left them on for me, but at the moment, they were the only functioning lights I had seen in the entire city. Tired as I was, I entered the building, disregarding caution in favor of potentially finding a bed to sleep on.

I paused a few steps into the dorm building to take in my surroundings. It appeared that the first floor was mostly an open area. To my left there was a reception desk with a small filing area behind it. To my right were several couches arranged around a coffee table, with a television off to the side, visible from all but one of the couches. Towards the back, and partially walled off was a kitchen and dining area. I perked up at the site of the kitchen. It was definitely bigger than the one I had been using back in London, that was a definite plus.

I was broken out of my cooking fantasies by a rather monotonous voice speaking from nearby.

"You're late." It said, drawing out each word and the pause between them, as if attempting to kill any inflection that may have been planning to come out. "I've been waiting a long time for you."

I turned to see a young boy standing behind the reception desk. He was very pale which was highlighted by the black and white horizontally striped shirt he was wearing. He had black hair and vivid blue eyes and was maybe 10 or 12 years old. For some reason, he reminded me of Ilya. I shook my head to avoid thinking about that any more, lest the guilt from that event take the last of my energy.

I narrowed my eyes at him. I was pretty sure he hadn't been there before.

"Now if you want to proceed," he continued, in the same tone as before, "please sign your name there."

All of a sudden he was right in front of me. Gesturing to an open folder on the reception desk.

"It's a contract…. Don't worry, all it says is that you'll accept full responsibility for your actions….

You know; the usual stuff"

He was definitely on my list of "Not human things that are not currently attempting to kill me", which was actually a rather short list. However, his talk of contracts seemed to indicate that I may want to move him over to my list of "Things that don't want to kill me now because they would find my soul to be a better meal", which was much longer than the first list.

Not yet ready to commit myself to a fight with whatever this pale boy was, I looked at the contract he indicated. There was only a single line of text on the paper.

"I chooseth this fate of mine own free will."

As contracts went, it wasn't much. It pretty much said that I agreed to be myself and accept the results of that.

I looked back at the pale boy.

"What if I don't sign the contract" I said.

"Then you cannot proceed." He replied.

He didn't seem to do anything, but the room seemed to get gradually darker, and a new smell of death entered the room.

I looked back at the contract. It didn't look like I was getting much of a choice on signing this thing. I had definitely agreed to worse contracts in the past. Although, admittedly, if a guy in a blue jumpsuit is trying to stab you through the heart for the second time in as many hours, you would probably agree to whatever Master-Servant, Holy Grail War entering contracts were presented to you if it could save your life.

I leaned forward and signed the sheet. When I finished, the pale boy picked up the folder and the room lightened back up again.

Stepping back from the reception desk the pale boy smiled at me as he held up the folder with my contract in it.

"No one can escape time." The pale boy said, turning the folder so that I could only see the line of its spine "It delivers us all to the same end."

"You can't plug your ears and cover your eyes." He turned his hand back, revealing that the folder was now gone.

As he finished speaking, the shadows in the room elongated and stretched unnaturally around the room, slowly covering the pale boy completely until he could no longer be seen. When all that was visible of him was his right hand, which was reaching towards me, he said "And so it begins." With that, the rest of his hand faded away, and the shadows spread to cover the rest of the room, quenching the light of the lamps. Rendering the room in the same green glow as the rest of the city.

"Well…" I said, grasping for an eloquent way to express how I felt about my current situation. "That was creepy."


	2. Arrival II

Disclaimer: I don't own Persona 3 or Fate/Stay Night. If I did, the Heaven's Feel route wouldn't have the worms! YOU KNOW WHAT WORMS I'M TALKING ABOUT!

_Author's note: real quick!_

_Character names will be Japanese style, so surname followed by given name (e.g. Emiya Shirou)._

_High School years will also be Japanese style, so Yukari and Junpei will be second year students (Juniors in the American system)._

_Honorifics will be in the style of the American release of Persona 3, so they won't be used unless it's a substitution for a name (e.g. Takeba calls Akihiko, Senpai, instead of his name.)_

_Thanks to my beta for taking time where he could be reading other fanfiction to proofread this._

_Thanks to Mark of Cain for his review and for helping me flesh out some of my ideas._

_Reviews are awesome! But the critiques are only really helpful if they are specific. If you don't like how I'm portraying/doing something please be specific about what I'm doing that you don't like. If you think that everything I write is terrible, also be specific, or don't review, I don't know if I can fix everything about what I write._

_Sorry to say, but updates will probably stay pretty slow. I tend to write the parts I find interesting or want to write first, then connect them up later._

*Story Start*

**Monday, April 6th**

"Who's there?!"

A female voice called me out of my contemplations of how strange this night had become. Unfortunately, the voice only made me think that the night was going to get even stranger.

I turned towards the sound of the voice and located its source. There was a young woman standing just next to the wall that divided the dining area from the rest of the first floor. In the dim light I could make out her pink cardigan and light brown hair. I Reinforced my eyes and managed to pick out more details. She was about 5' 3", wearing knee high socks, a very short black skirt, a white blouse under a pink cardigan, and a red ribbon at tied at her neck. There was a strange band on her arm with an acronym, "S.E.E.S." written out on it. What most caught my attention about her though, was the gun holstered at mid thigh on her right leg.

I barely had time to respond before she began to breath heavily and reached for her gun. It seemed that she had already concluded that I was a threat. I put what little magic I had left in my exhausted body into reinforcing my skull. For various reasons, I was rather hard to kill, and a single bullet probably wouldn't end my life. I wasn't sure that I could survive being shot in the head though, and I wasn't in a hurry to find out.

My efforts were unnecessary though, because before she could draw the gun another female voice called out from behind her in a commanding tone.

"Takeba! Wait!"

From out of the darkness behind the brown haired girl, another girl stepped out into the tainted moonlight. She had dark red wavy hair that parted just above her right eye, blocking her left eye from view, and from there fell down her back, past her hips. Similar to the first girl, she was wearing knee high socks and a black skirt, although her skirt fell to just above her knees instead of mid thigh. She also had the armband with "S.E.E.S" written on it. The new girl was also wearing a white blouse with a larger red ribbon tied at her neck. She was also carrying a gun, holstered in front of her left hip, with the handle pointing across her body. I sluggishly noted that it was a strange way to holster a gun, since it would require her to draw it across her body like a sword in order to fire it.

She held an air of command about her as she stood just in front of the darkness she had emerged from. Her eyes hadn't left the first girl since she had stepped out of the shadows, as if to keep her from freaking out by sheer force of her will. And it seemed to be working pretty well, the first girl was already breathing a little better.

Suddenly the world exploded with light. I quickly closed my eyes and canceled the Reinforcement on them. As I blinked my eyes rapidly to clear them up after the shock they had received, my other senses chimed in to let me know that the oppressive smells that had permeated the air were now gone. As quickly as everything had shown up, it left just as quickly, leaving no trace of it having existed at all. Apparently that meant that all of the lights in the room had come back on at the same time, overwhelming his eyes, which had been Reinforced to handle the dark.

I heard a sigh and a thump and looked up through my recovering eyes to see the girl in pink leaning against a wall, her strength having left with the tension she had been holding. The red headed girl gave her a considering look before picking her way across the room to me. As she approached, she spoke in a conversational manner, as if she hadn't just walked in on me about to be shot.

"I didn't think you'd arrive so late. My name is Kirijo Mitsuru. I'm one of the students who live in this dorm."

Dots began to slowly connect in my head. Rin had connections with the Kirijo family, which is how she got them to agree to take me in. What kind of family would a Magus family have strong connections with? Furthermore, there was the strange event I had witnessed upon arriving, which seemed not to phase the newly introduced Kirijo Mitsuru at all.

Was she a Magus? That seemed like a detail that Rin wouldn't have neglected to tell me, even though we didn't exactly part on the best of terms.

There were too many unknowns in this situation. There would be time to ask questions, but first, I should be polite; she was hosting me after all.

"It seems you already know who I am," I replied, "but for the sake of introductions, my name is Emiya Shirou. Thank you for putting me up on such short notice."

She smiled. "It's no trouble. We had some spare rooms here, and you can be moved to the boys dorm once things have been settled." Her smile changed to a smirk. "It is rather difficult to turn down a… request… from Rin, after all." One of her eyebrows quirked up as she emphasized the word, and her smirk widened.

Seeing my face take on an aggrieved expression, her smile returned.

"Rin and I occasionally met when we were much younger. It's good to see that her willful nature hasn't changed despite how long it's been."

The girl in pink, _the one who had almost pulled a gun on me_, seemed to have recovered and was walking over to join us. Kirijo once again took on a businesslike demeanor as she got closer.

The girl in pink had a horrendously fake smile pasted to her face as she approached. Her eyes however, were wary and watched me like I was a dangerous animal that had escaped its cage. She seemed reassured to have Kirijo there and stepped up to us so that she was behind and a little to the left of the redhead, although she looked like she would jump behind Kirijo in a second if I sneezed the wrong way.

Attempting to keep the smile on her face, the obviously scared girl whispered to the girl in front of her.

"Is it alright for him to be here?"

It seems she was still too flustered to control her voice well, because it easily carried to me.

Kirijo paused and gave me an appraising glance, eventually replying simply with "We'll see."

The girl in pink didn't seem reassured by the response, and her smile turned very fragile for a moment when Kirijo stepped aside to make introductions.

Turning to me, Kirijo gestured toward the girl in pink. "Emiya, this is Takeba Yukari. She'll be a second year this Spring, so she will be a year beneath you."

Turning back to Takeba, Kirijo introduced me. "Takeba, this is Emiya Shirou. He was recently living abroad, but had to come back to Japan for various reasons. He will be a third year starting in the Spring."

Seemingly put at ease by the fact that Kirijo knew who I was, the fake grin on Takeba's face was replaced with a sheepish look. She finally stepped forward and bowed deeply.

"I'm very sorry for… how I acted…. I heard a noise… and it was so late… I thought… well…"

It seemed that she wanted to apologize for almost pulling a gun on me, but also didn't want to mention the fact out loud. I waved for her to stop bowing and made my own apologies about arriving so late. I did want to know why she was carrying a gun around, but she seemed very distressed, and I couldn't just leave a damsel in distress because of some curiosity on my part.

Having been forgiven, and forgiving me for surprising her, Takeba finally pulled out her first real smile of the night. She nodded to me and stepped back in line with Kirijo, who smiled slightly over the easy resolution.

Kirijo then instructed Takeba to show me to the room I would be using, and informed me that my luggage was already there.

Nodding, Takeba gestured for me to follow her and began to make her way up the stairs.

I bade Kirijo a good night and followed my guide towards the promise of sleep.

The second floor of the building was made up of a hallway with doors on either side capped at the far end with a wall with a single window in it. It was rather plain, and a pair of vending machines stood out starkly against the plain decor. I followed my guide as she turned from the stairs and led me down the hallway.

She slowed down to draw out the hallway as she informed me about the dorm we were in. It seemed that the first floor was the living room, dining room, kitchen, and reception. The second floor, where we were now, was reserved for the boys. The third floor was for the girls. The fourth floor was for administration. There was also a door to the roof, but it was usually locked.

As we reached the last door on the right side of the hallway, Takeba slowed to a stop and gestured to the door.

"Here we are." She said. "Second floor, last door on the right. Pretty easy to remember, right?!"

She chuckled a bit and then opened her mouth as if to say something else. Instead of speaking though, she closed her mouth and her face set into a visage of thought.

After a moment, she nodded to herself and slowly raised her eyes to meet mine and spoke hesitantly, her eyes flicking down to the staircase every few seconds.

"Senpai… did you notice anything… strange… on your way over here tonight?"

I looked at her for a moment, debating how to respond to her question. I wasn't sure how much she knew about what was going on, and how much I could reveal of what I had seen.

My hesitancy seemed to be answer enough for her as she chuckled nervously and glanced back toward the stairs again.

"Sorry Senpai, that was a silly question. You're… uh… new here… so I bet everything is a little strange… right."

With jerky movements, she brought her left wrist up to her face and spoke out in a near complete monotone.

"Oh! Look at the time! We have school tomorrow! I should get to bed."

With further jerky movements, Takeba made her way back down the hallway towards the stairs.

About halfway there, she turned around and called back to me.

"I'll be taking you to school tomorrow, so don't worry about finding your own way there."

She then turned back and, with smoother movements than before, made her way to the stairs and up to the girl's floor.

After watching her go, I turned back to glare at my door. I was going to open the door, and there had better be a bed and no further surprises. No weird kids with contracts, no standing coffins, no pink high schoolers with guns.

Preparing myself for another surprise I opened the door to the room I would be using for the foreseeable future.

Oh hey! There was a bed!


End file.
